Class 2: Infancy
 
Review
Discussion
Here are ten learning objectives for today’s class organized by the five course aims.
Aim 1: Describing change
Describe changes in locomotion, perception, memory, and language
Walking: evidence for both genetic programming and learning;
systems approach to development of walking
Perception
Inborn preferences: more face-like
Affordances----links to motor movement
Relate changes in the infant’s brain to changes in motor activity, perception, and memory
Maturation of frontal lobe (part of brain) leading to inhibition of impulses which helps baby not do certain areas (A not B)
Aim 2: Explaining change
How did Piaget describe infant’s thought processes AND explain change in their thought process?
Assimilation v. accommodation: which one leads to shift in stage?
How do recent research support and weaken Piaget’s views on infancy thought?
Baillargeon’s experiments on possible and impossible event
Explain change using Vygotsky’s concept of the zone of proximal development
Will discuss next lecture
Aim 3: Comparing change in diverse situations
Compare two examples of how cultural customs can influence the development of motor activities.
Cradle-boarding and Afro-Caribbean and White-European kids
Aim 4: Analyzing arguments
Analyze the evidence that infants are more precocial than Piaget had thought.
Example: Think of Baillargeon’s work: she is ASSUMING she knows when babies are surprised
Aim 5: Proposing solutions
A father worries that his 9-month old infant is suddenly wary about new people and new experiences. He suspects that the infant may be disturbed experiences in day care. Provide an alternative explanation by referring to what is known about changes in infant memory and categorization.
You are linking cognitive phenomena like “object permanence”, “proto-categories”, and “memory” with a social behavior: feature of new people. Describe how in terms a layperson can understand.
Video
Journey Through Childhood: Tape 1 Module 3 Infants and Toddlers (19 minutes)
Cognitive
Perceiving objects, surfaces, and people
Nelson on infant face perception and recognition of emotions
Babies don’t YET make distinctions in complex emotions
Interaction opportunities provided by the environment are called …
Examples? Affordances
Adolph on perceiving surfaces and locomotion
What does the crawling and gap experiment demonstrate and the slope experiment demonstrate?
Memory of proper and dangerous affordances do not carry over with change from crawling to walking.
Baby Emma knows the cat is still whole even if part of the cat is obscured by an arm. This is called…
Object constancy in video but Object Permanence is also okay
Object permanence and memory
Infants understand object ___________ when they search for objects that are hidden from view.
Stranger wariness emerges between 9-12 months of age and is one indication that the infant’s __________ capacity increasing.
Piaget’s stages of sensorimotor development
GENERAL characteristics of this stage
How is Piaget’s understanding of infants being refined or revised.
E.g. Ballargeon’s experiment and signing kidsw
Assessment
Preview